Overthinking Porn

I watch waaaaay more porn than my Fella does, but I probably don’t watch as much as many people of my acquaintance (having said that, I think our normal porn consumption habits have changed somewhat since the advent of Covid19!). I used to think my porn use was somehow shameful – not just the fact that I, a woman, am watching porn but guilt about the type of content I watch. I’m over this now. Reading the words of adult content producers themselves, following porn performers on Twitter and talking with porn-producing acquaintances has totally changed my outlook on porn allowing me to seek out ethical porn, porn that meets my tastes and where I can be confident that a fair proportion of my money is going to the artists themselves. I am not ashamed of being an avid consumer of quality porn*.

I watch porn because it turns me on. I don’t have to do anything, or think about anything, just look at the screen and enjoy the way what I’m seeing makes me wet and thrilled. If I like what I see, my cunt will start to ache, become flushed and plump-lipped. My breathing will come faster. I’ll feel my pupils dilate, and sooner or later inevitably one hand will creep downwards until I’m two knuckles deep in my own self, and tapping impatiently with my other hand into the search function, show me this, I wanna watch that.

I don’t watch porn for the storylines, I watch it for the fucking. The type of brutal NC-looking** fucking that in reality would probably break me in minutes, but in my fantasies lasts for relentless hours of endurance. All the elaborate rope work that the Fella doesn’t have the patience for – which I wholly sympathise with, because while I love being tied up, I also find doing the tying is actually pretty tedious. (I’m very glad there are people in the world who feel differently!).

The woman on the screen lives out my desires. She holds the contorted positions which my damaged joints will no longer allow me to try out, and she gets fucked in ways that make me ache with longing. She has the stamina that I’m too lax to attain, and the business wit to make a profession of it. When I watch BDSM porn, I’m not identifying with the kidnap victim, or slave, or misbehaving sub that the storyline portrays; I’m imagining I’m the performer, acting out the fantasy, enjoying getting fucked, enjoying being tortured – and making a damn good job of it.

Or I’m watching someone I don’t identify physically with, but in whom I recognise myself in other ways – the young man tied down and milked by his cruel, sexy colleagues with helpless arousal and cock-sucking passion; the Army guy getting face-fucked in the interrogation suite – a flash of expression that I know well oh don’t stop, give it to me, push through the pain, or an involuntary arching of his back fuck me, now, please, which mirrors my own inner monologue.

My porn tastes are mostly pretty simple – I look for content that reflects my fantasies. My fantasies are pretty primitive and dark, so the content I look at is most definitely hard-core, usually D/s or simulated NC bondage. Hitty things are usually involved, and now that I’ve discovered the joys of electrosex; electro-torture has also joined the list. I look at rough gangbangs, dungeon scenes, abduction storylines, ambush scenarios because they make me hot. I wank to porn when I don’t have the mental energy to get myself going, or the mental focus to be able to conjure up coherent images in my mind.

Porn-wanks don’t give me the best orgasms though. They tend to be more mechanical, probably because my attention is diverted between sight and feeling. When I jerk off without porn, or when I am having partnered sex, I usually close my eyes to focus better on sensation. Despite the often-underwhelming climax though, there’s something rather grubbily titillating about rubbing one out with businesslike efficiency, coming with a grunt of relief, then getting up to make a cup of tea, and getting on with the next thing on the To Do list. Soulless self-fucking, not TLC but a mundane maintenance task. Self-objectification. Mmmm.

Hopefully unnecessary caveats, but just in case:

*That’s not to say I don’t acknowledge that much of the porn industry is predatory, unethical, sometimes criminal. Just like any other industry, it has its share of greed and callousness, grim conditions and exploitation. All the more reason to support lawful and ethical arrangements which benefit those involved. All the more reason to pay and enjoy ethical porn made by nice people!

**but not too convincingly

Everyone has different tastes, as long as it’s all consenting adults whose rights are being respected; its not for anyone to judge anyone else’s preferences. Liking hardcore BDSM porn doesn’t make me any more of a danger to myself or others than watching Quentin Tarantino movies, or reading serial killer novels would do. I refuse to feel ashamed of this, or let the vestiges of my conservative religious upbringing nag guiltily at me for enjoying my sexuality. Please don’t attempt to persuade me otherwise in the comments.